Let the Nesting Begin!

So, I have begun nesting in earnest. This last weekend I cooked a rather vast quantity of chicken with the intent of stocking the deep freeze with ready made meals for after the baby comes. We now have 5-6 meals worth of chicken nuggets, pre-seasoned and shredded chicken for quesadilas, and enough chicken soup to make me wonder if I will every actually feel like looking at a chicken again. The roomba is seeing plenty of action. I have 3 to-do lists wandering around the refrigerator and need to write at least 1 more. Baby announcement supplies have been bought (I make my own) and the ceiling fans still don't know what hit them.

I think my experience with Charlie is really shaping my behavior with the pregnancy. With Charlie, we had the whole tainted well/no water saga for the whole last 6 weeks of my pregnancy and then we didn't get water back until 36 hours before he was born. There were so many tasks that I didn't get to do that my hormonal self was aching for- food couldn't be cooked, dogs couldn't be washed, bathrooms couldn't get scrubbed. In addition, the whole element of Charlie coming right at week 37 threw everything off. While I was still thinking I had plenty of time, I soooo didn't. Who ever heard of a first baby being EARLY?

At the same time, I could be completely wrong, but I really think that there may be a purpose behind the frenzy. I struggle a lot with trusting myself when it comes to pregnancy. I knew in my heart the sex of my babies long before the ultrasounds. I strongly suspected I was pregnant with both babies long before a positive test ever appeared. In addition to "feelings," I think there is also a lot to intuition simply being your subconscious paying attention to and putting things together that your conscious mind doesn't for whatever reason. In my case, I began to suspect that I would go early with Charlie by the 33rd week. I remember suddenly realizing that my pregnancy symptoms were no longer lining up with the week I was in sometime in the 3rd trimester but instead a couple of weeks later. The clincher was when I figured out Charlie had dropped and it was only week 33. Much frantic reading confirmed that the longest that puts you away from labor is generally 4 weeks which would be... 37 weeks but I thought I simply must be mistaken. Over several days before Charlie was born, I noticed all manner of subtle changes- my joints seemed looser, I was far more irritable than previously, I kept getting these "twinges," and I had this driving urge to do tasks around the house- most notably cleaning the baseboards at 3 am with baby wipes since we still didn't have water. I continued to ignore the idea that labor was imminent up until my water actually broke.

In the same sort of vein, I feel somewhere deep down that this pregnancy is quickly moving along. Things just feel more scrunched than I would expect them to feel at this point, granted, I'm carrying this baby completely differently but still... The baby's movements feel much more cramped than I would expect and this baby is very low. I don't have the bowling ball between the legs feeling some women describe but I have been feeling pokes far below where I even though my uterus extended. My nesting urge is so very strong. I keep having to really make an effort to reign myself in. You just can't do a full deep cleaning of the kitchen if you are also expected to care for a very active toddler the next day. I haven't started to go after the baseboards yet but they are starting to call to me as are the obscure cleanings tasks that one generally doesn't think of. The air intake registers have begun to irritate me greatly and I have this insane urge to take 4 showers a day just so I can use up all the random bath products that are wandering about under my sink. Also, my underwear drawer is suddenly striking me as being ridiculously disorganized. It will be interesting to see when I actually deliver. My due date is May 17th, my early prediction was delivery on May 12th (Mother's Day) and my current goal is to have everything done by May 1st with all bets off starting then. Adding to my stress, my DH is traveling to Ireland in my 34th week. While we have an OB visit scheduled the day before he leaves to check nothing "exciting" is occurring and even I don't think I will deliver that early, there is a part of me that is very worried about the matter. Of course, with all this trepidation, preparation, and prediction, the baby will likely wind up coming sometime in early June...